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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>The speech engine used by Kindle 2 appears to be Nuance’
voices. With the device of that size, I would estimate these voices to be the
Nuance vocalizer voices with a small footprint. These are the same voices used
by the Victor Stream and the Plextalk Pocket.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";
color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'> athen-bounces@athenpro.org
[mailto:athen-bounces@athenpro.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Sean Keegan<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, February 09, 2009 1:38 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Access Technology Higher Education Network; Alternate Media<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Athen] New Amazon Kindle released<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Just
an FYI - Amazon has released the new version of the Kindle. More
information is available at the Amazon site (<a href="http://tinyurl.com/afddgh">http://tinyurl.com/afddgh</a>)
as well as at Engadget (<a href="http://tinyurl.com/btzncn">http://tinyurl.com/btzncn</a>).
Some improvements that were interesting were:<br>
<br>
- Adjustable Text Size<br>
Font size is adjustable for up to six different settings. No word on
whether or not you can change the font itself, but at least the size is
(somewhat) adjustable.<br>
<br>
- Read To Me feature<br>
The Kindle 2 now has text-to-speech capability with the option of either a male
or female voice. No word as to what speech engine or how the voices sound,
so it will be interesting to see what has been implemented. Note - the
addition of text-to-speech is for the content text and does not seem to extend
to system menus, etc.<br>
<br>
- Built in dictionary<br>
Dictionary is The New Oxford American Dictionary and allows the user to
navigate to any word on the page and the dictionary will show the information
at the bottom of the screen.<br>
<br>
- Bookmarks and Annotations<br>
Users can specify a bookmark on a page to return to the specific page later as
well as add annotations to the page using the keyboard (annotations can be
exported). You can also highlight content as well. It is not clear
if you can highlight page content and export that along with your notes.<br>
<br>
While it does support a number of different file formats (MS Word, HTML, PDF,
etc.) it is a bit convoluted to get these files onto the device. Would
also be nice if it supported DAISY or at least ePub. In any case, it
appears as if it has a few more improvements but will be interesting to see how
it actually functions in the real world (i.e., with students).<br>
<br>
Take care,<br>
Sean<br>
<br>
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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